1. Technological Field
The present invention relates to a conference support apparatus, a conference support system, a conference support method, and a computer-readable recording medium storing a conference support program.
2. Background
In recent years, conference support apparatuses have been proposed in which an electric blackboard provided with a touch panel and the like is used and screen transition in accordance with user operation is stored to manage the flow of the conference in a time-series manner (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2003-339033 and 2010-176216). Conference support apparatuses manage the flow of the conference in a time-series manner, and thus can reproduce the state of the screen at an arbitrary time point.
In the following description, a system in which a plurality of apparatuses including a conference support apparatus are connected through a network such as the Internet and wireless/cable LAN (Local Area Network) is referred to as conference support system. Each apparatus of a conference support system functions as a display section or an operation section. In the conference support system, by operating his or her terminal apparatus, the user can perform various object operations such as moving, expanding and contracting on various objects such as text boxes in which to input letters and marks, and diagrams. In addition, PTL 1 proposes to create the summary for each theme or speaker of a conference in order to efficiently grasp the flow of the conference.
3. Description of the Related art
As described above, while conference support systems have been utilized for the efficiency of the conference, it is necessary to branch the discussion by returning to an arbitrary time point for discussion from different viewpoints in some cases. For example, U.S. Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008/0046809 discloses a document processing apparatus, not a conference support system, in which an undo UI screen for displaying a time axis and a slider is provided in a lower area on a screen and the time axis displayed on the undo UI screen can be branched. When a discussion that has reached a certain conclusion can be selectively reproduced as a digest from among conclusions obtained by discussions through the complicated processes including branches, the content of the conference can be efficiently shared or looked back, and thus the convenience of the conference support system is further improved. Unfortunately, conventional conference support systems have not been designed for such a function, and have a room for improvement in terms of convenience.